


Falling

by Ladycat



Series: Happy Endings [7]
Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Domestic, Family, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 05:52:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor doesn't fall so much as crumble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

Connor doesn't fall so much as crumble: muscles detaching from each bone and ligament to dump him into an ungainly heap in the corner of the sofa. He looks like leftover trash shoved into a convenient shadow, individual pieces that make up a rotten whole.

For one terrifying second Spike thinks he might be crying.

"Er. Pet? You okay over there?"

"Mm."

That _mm_ means fine, Spike guesses, because it doesn't sound particularly sad. Not that that matters, really. Connor doesn't leak emotions except when he's overwhelmed and sometimes not even then.

But Spike still smells salt.

Approaching the sofa warily, Spike pads hands and knees until if he stretched torso and neck, he'd bump his nose into Connor's shoulder. Doesn't, though. "Love."

"I'm glad they're gone."

Well, yeah. So is Spike. "Okay?"

Connor peeks sky blue from his out-flung arm. "They're my _family_."

"Okay?" Spike repeats, same tentative inflection.

That earns him a thunderhead glare, mouth curled so the bristles of a face not shaved in too long - _"Really, Connor, are you going to stay that scruffy the entire time?"_ \- stand up in attack formation. "You don't get it."

Connor rolls, presenting a knobby spine underneath a shirt pulled too taut from the position. It radiates sullen annoyance the way the sun radiates light: constant, unending, and anything that gets close is going to be burned to a cinder.

Spike rolls his eyes. "Wanker. Are you going to do this every single time your parents come for a visit? Cause it's getting mighty old."

"Go away, Spike."

"It's my apartment too, bratling, so no, I won't." 'Bratling' doesn't even earn him a shoulder twitch. Spike frowns and hauls out the big guns: "So your family drives you batty. Get the fuck over it."

Stillness, but it's the kind that precedes a hurricane, pregnant and lush with imaginary cello's humming a warning in Spike's head. All Connor says, though, is, "You don't understand."

"Bullshit. It's _you_ that doesn't, always making up drama where there doesn't need to be any. Families make you crazy. It's what they _do_. It doesn't mean you love them any less."

The last comes out more gently than he wants, but it's not a wrong step. At least he doesn't think. Spike watches the curled up ball of confused boy, a hundred years old, for all he's twenty one, or six, depending on how you look at it. This boy who puts the wrong kind of stock in families, hero-worships them that don't deserve it and can't help but fear the one who worships _him_ right back, because he's never really had it before. Not outside of a memory he doesn't dare trust.

"Love." Gentle, he says it, and entreating, and Connor turns, as trusting as the child he's never really been, right into Spike's arms, smelling of salt and bitter and sick like a baby too upset to know if crying's the right response after all. "Love, d'you know why I call you that?"

"Because you're a British freak that loves nicknames," Connor says, petulant - but confused, too. Interested.

"No." And it's poetic, or maybe ironic, that three in a row, now, he's gone after people that never understand all the emotion bubbling up inside of them, conditioned to fight and resist the steady lure. Well, that's why they have him. "No, it's because of you. Because you need to hear it, put a name to what's inside of you."

Connor digests that, breathing steady and warm into Spike's neck. It's erotic, or will be in another time and place. Here, all Spike does is stroke hair gone stiff from too much washing, clinging to his fingers.

"You can love someone without liking them much. You can miss someone and want them gone thirty seconds after a reunion. It's what family _is_ , Connor. Mixed up, and twisted, and confusing contradictions that all come down to one thing: you love them. They love you. Everything else comes out with a little bleach."

That provokes a chuckle, tag-line to a joke they'd played (well, Spike, with Connor reluctantly not stopping him) the entire week Connor's parents had been here, poking and prodding. Asking questions Connor didn't want to answer, offering advice he didn't want to hear.

Loving him. Family stuff. And Spike, at least, had soaked it all up.

Even though they really weren't sure what to make of him and weren't shy about asking Connor for explanations he wasn’t going to give.

The smell of salt is fading, a distant memory of the ocean they can't smell in their up-hill apartment. Connor's not breathing so heavily, either, lips warm and a little wet as they press against Spike's neck. "How come you're so good at this?"

 _'Cause I want it. Cause I had it, and loved it, and spent the rest of my unlife trying to recreate it. Cause I_ have _it, once again, and nothing and no one is taking it away from me._

"One of my charms," is what he says, and Connor laughs and hugs him back, quiet and calm without any hint of a storm still to come. Just breathing. "Want some ice cream?"

Connor rolls his eyes - doesn't need to see it to know what _that_ huff means - and clambers to his feet. The loss of warmth is disappointing, but Connor's eyes are wide and glittering as he offers his hand. "No, but I want a beer. You?"

Laughing, Spike follows him into the kitchen. It's not the end of it, of course. Never is, with family. But if Connor can get this, can get how love and hate get mixed up, and frustration doesn't mean _ending_ \- well. That's the secret to life as Spike knows it.

He'll get Connor there.

Because he wants to.


End file.
